


the Knights and the Dragon

by Marsalias



Category: Original Work
Genre: Dragons, F/M, Fantasy, Knights - Freeform, present tense narration, what more do you want here, women avoiding arranged marriages via dragons
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-09
Updated: 2021-03-09
Packaged: 2021-03-15 14:47:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,971
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29935014
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Marsalias/pseuds/Marsalias
Summary: A good knight climbed the mountain to slay the dragon.(And he found no dragon but eight damsels.)An evil knight climbed the mountain to slay the dragon.(And the dragon found him, and the damsels danced on his grave.)
Comments: 28
Kudos: 82





	the Knights and the Dragon

A good knight climbs the mountain to slay the dragon. 

The road, what little of it there is, is steep and treacherous. He leaves his beloved horse in the village, not wanting to risk the mare breaking a leg or, if worst should come to pass, being eaten by the dragon. 

The village headsman, a minor noble, landed gentry, if barely, scowls at the knight as he leaves on foot. His daughter was the last one taken by the beast. 

“Preparing for failure?” he asks, face crumpling into a sneer around bloodshot eyes. 

The knight shrugs. The man is grieving, and he has no desire to delay his journey. Privately, he thinks he would be fool _not_ to prepare for failure. 

He has seen many men and women die. Some left him with inheritance, with curses, with benedictions, with pleas. Some left him with nothing but the wetness on his blade. 

The knight wonders if, should he fail to slay the dragon, he will leave the beast with anything but a full stomach. A storyteller he once heard claimed that dragons were the equal of any man when it came to wit, and more than equal in magic. But he’d heard otherwise, as well. Perhaps they varied. Perhaps they were like dogs, where one breed may seem like another animal entirely in comparison to another. 

On the ragged, rock-strewn path, he has no way of telling. All he knows is that the creature has carried off two women, each the day before their respective weddings. All he knows is that there is a threat to the people of the king he has sworn to serve. All he knows is that his sword is straight, his armor sound, and he has faced things much worse than a dragon. 

(Do not ask him what things those are if you are wise.)

Halfway up the mountain there is a smoking cave. Around the mouth of that cave is the detritus of life and fresh washing. The knight spends several long moments staring at it, at a loss for why a dragon might need laundry, of all things. Laundry made up of petticoats, at that. 

Then a woman walks from around the next bend in the path, carrying a basket of herbs. She stops when she catches sight of him and calls out. Soon, seven more women emerge from various hiding spots. 

Their clothes are simple, and they wear their hair in long braids. Two of them are from the village the knight had come through, and the knight wonders at the fact that they are alive at all.

At length, at a hand-carved table in the cave, only a few yards from the dragon’s hoard, it is explained to him that the dragon iss away and would most likely return with a new young lady in tow in a few. The dragon, the women say, did not eat them all at once, but keeps them as servants until one of them should displease it. 

Their words paint a picture that make the knight’s heart stir with horror. 

“You should leave,” he says. “While the dragon is away. Then, even should I fail to slay it, you shall be safe.” He finds his eyes on the woman he first saw, the herb-gatherer. She is no beauty, but her eyes are a green that captivates. 

“Sir Knight,” she says, voice deep and sad, “would that we could. But should we leave while the dragon yet lives, he will go back to our homes and gobble up our families. We cannot go.”

“You are the one who should leave,” says the eldest woman, who is of an age with the knight’s eldest sister. Her eyes, too, are green. “This dragon has eaten many knights. Look.” She points at the dragon’s hoard. 

There is more iron and steel in it than gold, all of it brightly polished. The knight recognizes some of the sigils, and although none of them belong to men he counts as friends, he could acknowledge that they are strong. Were strong. 

The sight sends a chill down his spine. He turns away. 

“I will not run,” he says. “Surely, you want your freedom.”

“That is all any of us have ever wanted,” says the first woman. “One we would pay for, gladly. But, as you will not flee, neither shall we.”

The knight is silent at that. To refuse to flee from such a creature, and none of them with any weapon, any defense beside their wit… The knight must say they are braver than he. 

He would, he thinks, be a fool not to use that.

“Then,” he said, “for your freedom, help me slay this dragon.”

.

Her name is Roxanne, he learns as the week passes. She is, he thinks, someone he could come to love. But she is promised to another, he learns. All the women are.

The knight keeps his distance, even as the nine of them plot and plan, even as he aids them in their daily chores, even as he learns their names and lives and little habits. 

He is not, perhaps, keeping his distance very well. 

As they climb into the mountain meadow above the cave to harvest what plants they may, he and Roxanne discuss the dragon. Its claws. Its fangs. Its head. Its eyes. Its tail. Its wings. Its belly. Its heart. She speaks most of its heart, and how the knight might pierce it, his sword sliding through the weaker armor of its belly as she and the other women pick clean its scales. 

She shows him a rabbit trap she had set the other day. She dresses the kill with a fine bone-handled knife. 

The knight thinks he may be in love. 

He has been saving a sachet of foreign spices for himself as a treat. They go very well with the rabbit. The ladies applaud him. 

.

Two more weeks pass, and the knight wonders if, perhaps, the dragon fell afoul of some misfortune. Misfortune for it, that is. 

“It has been gone for longer before,” said Roxanne. “Two months, once, before it brought Anor.” She nods at one of the younger women, who is from a town in the next valley over. Anor returns the nod in agreement. “Be patient.”

He _is_ patient, but he is, perhaps, somewhat concerned for his horse.

.

It is another two weeks before the women reveal their ruse, and the knight both wonders why he didn’t see it before, and why they did not kill him on any of the nights he slept among them, undefended.

“We did not come here to be killers,” says the eldest. “Only to live our lives free.”

“And what of the shields and armor?” he asks. “What of the hoard?”

Roxanne shrugs in a way most would proclaim to be unladylike. “The mountain is steep. It isn’t our fault if they fall from their horses.”

The knight elects not to broach the subject again. As he said, the men who once wore that armor were not his friends. 

“I should leave, in that case,” he says, bowing. “I thank you for your hospitality and apologize for my intrusion.” For intrusion it was and is. 

“Leave?” asks Roxanne. 

“I assure you, I will tell no one of what you do here.” He smiles and hopes it comes off as charming. “Perhaps I will say the dragon enchanted me.”

“I mean,” she says, coming closer, “you intend to leave by yourself.”

“I had thought—” begins the knight. “You would come with me?”

“I would.”

“I have no inheritance,” warns the knight. “It all went to my older brother. I carry with me all I own, save my horse.”

Roxanne smiles, and her smile _is_ charming. And sharp. “My dowry,” she says, indicating the cave and all that lies within, “will be more than enough, I think.”

.

For the second time, the knight does not ride away from the village. Instead, he leads his horse forward, Roxanne perched rather nervously on top. She is not as used to travel as he is, and they intend to settle far, far away. 

.

A knight rides up the mountain to slay the dragon. This is a different knight from before. He comes months after the good knight and Roxanne have left.

He stops to rest his mount. He has no great affection for the beast, but it is valuable, and the road is difficult. 

The stolen women, he thinks, each gone on their wedding day, are most likely dead, eaten by the beast. Not that it particularly matters to him, except that each victim increases the glory he will receive when he kills the dragon. 

He is very concerned with glory. It is how he will rise from his present station. Experience, too, is important to him. Should he slay this dragon, he may slay others. There is a great dragon in the north, and the king will exchange his daughter for its heart. Or so they say. 

But, first, this small one.

He urges his mount higher. He comes across the women at their washing. 

It is a stroke of luck, he thinks. Another note in his story. He speaks to them of _their_ luck. Of the fortune they have received with his arrival. 

He comes up with a plan. He shall lie in wait while the women distract the dragon, and, when the time is right, he shall kill it in one blow. 

They say the dragon will return in the night when the moon is highest. The knight prepares. He sharpens his sword, tightens his armor, hides his horse. He takes the first serving of the supper the women prepare. It is bland and bitter, and he salts it from his own pouch. 

He settles behind the dragon’s hoard to wait. 

.

Outside, while the moon rises, the women take each other’s hands and move in a circle. Faster. Faster. _Faster._ Each was taught the steps to this dance by those who came before them, and the steps are old, old, _old._

They are the head of the dragon. 

The eyes.

The wings.

The claws. 

The tail. 

The belly.

The heart.

.

In the cave, the knight sleeps. The women know their herbcraft. The knight would be no match for the dragon, even awake, but why take the risk? They would be fools to do so. 

.

“I think we should leave this mountain, soon,” says the eldest, cleaning blood from her mouth. “It has been too long. Too many knights.”

“I should think, more knights are better,” says the dragon’s eyes, brushing her hair. “For food, treasure, and love.”

“There are too few of us for love,” argues the dragon’s claws. “I am glad for Roxanne, but the magic will not work for six.” She looks at the heart. “Though, I certainly wish you luck with love.”

“I think we should go, as well,” says the heart. “South, perhaps. I liked the spices Roxanne’s knight had from there.” She licks her lips. “I’ve heard it is a rich country, full of gold.”

“South it is, then,” says the eldest, the dragon’s head. “Now, what should we do with the horse?”

.

That night, if any who lived around the mountain looked up, they would have seen something that, if you squinted, might have been a dragon carrying a horse. They did not look up.

.

The good knight wakes to a rather strange sight in the morning. The number of his horses doubled overnight. The second horse looks to his eyes to be rather… anxious. 

“One more bride gift, it seems,” says Roxanne, leaning against him. 

The knight frowned. “How…” The question trails away as he looks into Roxanne’s too-green eyes. 

Well. 

_Well._

He would be a fool, to look a gift horse in the mouth, wouldn’t he?


End file.
